WASHINGTON, DC (Tuesday, September 19) – Double Exposure Investigative Film Festival & Symposium launches its third edition with DC premieres of new films that go beyond the headlines to capture riveting stories and confront matters that have been hidden from the public, until now.

Double Exposure’s film program will kick-off on Thursday, October 19 with its opening night film ONE OF US, the highly anticipated new documentary from Academy nominated directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (Jesus Camp, 12th and Delaware, Detropia, Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You). In One of Us, three Hasidic Jews leave their ultra-Orthodox community to join the secular world. Unprepared for life outside the tightly-knit community, they experience ostracism, lost relationships and even danger. A Netflix original documentary. Oct. 19, 7:00 pm, National Portrait Gallery.

A film still from NO STONE UNTURNED. Photo credit: Stan Harlow.

NO STONE UNTURNED, the latest work from Academy Award and Emmy-winning director Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) is the festival’s centerpiece film and will screen on Friday, October 20. Gibney’s documentary re-opens a 1994 investigation into the massacre of six men as they watched a World Cup soccer match in their local Northern Ireland pub. Gibney exposes a complex web of lies and corruption, and reveals something that a criminal investigation spanning over twenty years did not: the identities of the suspected killers. Friday, October 20, 8:30 pm, Naval Heritage Center.

And VOYEUR, from directors Myles Kane and Josh Koury, is the festival’s closing night film on Saturday, October 21. Voyeur follows journalist Gay Talese as he reports on one of the most controversial stories of his career: a portrait of a Colorado motel owner, Gerald Foos, who spent decades spying on his guests and recording their private moments. A Netflix original documentary. Saturday, October 21, 8:30 pm, Naval Heritage Center.

“We are very proud to screen these wonderful, new investigative documentaries,” said Diana Jean Schemo, founder and co-director of Double Exposure. “Each film illustrates a different aspect of investigative storytelling: the first takes audiences deep inside a community usually closed to outsiders; the second investigates a mystery that has gone unsolved for decades; and the third interrogates the investigative process itself.”

“These three extraordinary films from some of today’s most visionary filmmakers embody the very essence of what we aim to achieve at Double Exposure,” said Sky Sitney, festival co-director. “They are works that seek to uncover something otherwise hidden from view, expressed through a distinctive cinematic language.”

About Double Exposure

In recent years, the creative landscape of films inspired by investigative reporting has flowered in unexpected and exciting ways, from Spotlight, which took audiences inside The Boston Globe investigative team, to Blackfish, which exposed mistreatment of orca whales at SeaWorld, to Citizenfour, which gave us a front-row seat on Edward Snowden’s massive release of files on government surveillance.

Yet this flourishing of creativity comes just as the rights of journalists and visual storytellers face unprecedented challenges on nearly every level: politically, socially, legally and financially.

Double Exposure, a project of the nonprofit investigative news organization 100Reporters, showcases the best new films inspired by the investigative instinct, in a bid to raise public recognition of this vital form of reporting that doesn’t just ask tough questions, but delivers answers. It pairs film screenings with a concurrent symposium for journalists and filmmakers to connect with each other, and with the producers, editors, funders, and experts who can advance their work.

Major supporters of Double Exposure include the Reva and David Logan Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundations.

This year, Double Exposure (DX) launched a new program for students passionate about storytelling in the public interest – Double Exposure Academy (DXA). This initiative can have a broad and generous impact on students; I know, as a college senior in 2015, I attended the first edition of DX. Our hope is that more students have the opportunity to immerse themselves in an environment that is both socially-driven and intellectually-challenging by learning from passionate individuals dedicated to elevating stories that matter. Below, I outline the need for DXA and my thoughts after attending DX the past two years.

Today, younger generations consume media across many mediums, including print, audio, and video. As a result of independent funding and democratizing tools like the internet, newer, younger voices have entered the social discourse; however, media is far from achieving a diverse representation of expression.

DX encourages collaboration between filmmakers and journalists. In this spirit, we seek to build a supportive community of both seasoned and emerging voices to strengthen the rights of all to pursue the truth. DXA is designed to offer unparalleled insights into the journalism, film and broader media industries for dedicated students. We hope DXA will encourage young people to pursue artistic endeavors in the public interest and reach a greater parity in storyteller representation.

Not surprisingly, DX is steeped in the investigative instinct. As the nation’s first investigative film festival, speakers remark with regularity that DX is an important space to encourage collaboration between visual storytelling and investigative journalism. In fact, when DX had its first opening night screening of Spotlight, director Tom McCarthy said, “Every city in America should have an investigative film festival.”

DX is a vital node in the media industry, particularly at the intersection of social issue and investigative film and journalism. The symposium develops knowledge and practices by bringing together filmmakers and journalists with producers, funders, academics, and consultants who can advance their work. For example, this year, individuals representing The Atlantic, Frontline, Tribeca Film Institute, The Alliance for Media Arts + Culture, Fledgling Fund, The New Yorker, POV, BritDoc Foundation, MIT Open Documentary Lab, and the New York Times will offer their unscripted points of view.

Ultimately, DX influences the media discourse. Attendees leave the symposium and festival with a more nuanced articulation of how storytelling can be a force for social change and accountability. DX does this by celebrating a new genre of filmmaking, supporting the rights of filmmakers and journalists, and casting this body of work as a coherent artistic vision tied to practical consequences.

DX has been an important space for me to engage with journalists and filmmakers who not only seek a better world, but work towards it. I have discussed James Baldwin with a Sundance award-winning director as well as the relationship between memory and trauma with a celebrated cameraperson. I am thankful for having DX at this particular point of my life, and now, especially in today’s political landscape, I sincerely wish other students have the same opportunity.

Action star Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker, The Avengers) delves into the shadowy world of investigative journalism as Gary Webb, the real-life journalist who remains one of the most controversial of our times. In the vein of “All the President’s Men,” this thriller follows Webb’s allegations that the CIA supported Nicaraguan contra efforts through the importation of crack cocaine into American cities. Threatened against releasing his evidence, in 1996 Webb nevertheless wrote a three-part series in the San Jose Mercury News — paying for it with his reputation and ultimately his life.

“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right … to have the assistance of counsel for his defense” — Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution. But with 15,000 public defenders for 12 million arrests per year, this unalienable right becomes a civil rights battle for those unable to afford a lawyer. “Gideon’s Army” follows three of its soldiers as they navigate the emotional and personal strain of handling hundreds of cases at once, simultaneously introducing viewers to defendants and their struggle — frightening, heartbreaking, and inspiring — for equality in the courtroom.

Adversaries for hire. Robert Kenner’s 2014 documentary enters the world of scientific gunslingers, experts paid by corporations to publicly contest research findings that may hurt their bottom line. This world, Merchants of Doubt posits, is one in which global warming, DDT, acid rain, tobacco, ozone, and asbestos remain controversial at the benefit of big business and the mouthpieces they hire — and the expense of scientific communities overwhelmingly adamant about the need for regulatory action.